What Is a Book Coach and Why Should You Hire One?
Just like a tennis coach who focuses on fundamentals, a book coach lends practical advice and strategies for finishing your manuscript
How does an aspiring writer with no prior experience produce a novel? Sit down and write, obviously! In reality, it’s far more daunting than it sounds.
In my case, I had writing experience. I had attended Columbia Journalism School and worked in magazines. Still, writing a novel seemed like the equivalent of climbing Kilimanjaro in socks.
I plowed through all the craft books. On Writing by Steven King, The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. As much as I love Lisa Cron’s Story Genius, certain parts felt like reading Anna Karenina, in Russian.
Finally, I tapped into a resource I’d heard about but never enlisted: The Book Coach. Part editor, part therapist, a book coach functions as a discerning, editorially minded reader who lends practical advice on the structure, characters, and plot of your book while also helping to prepare your work for the market. I’ve relied on two separate coaches for different things at different times, and they’ve changed my writing life.
Why Hire a Coach?
I had just completed a course at the UCLA Writer’s Extension program. My teacher, Kelly Barson, had called me out on something that no prior reader had. She said that my character, an eleven-year-old New Yorker, sounded like a spoiled brat. I was horrified to hear this — but I knew she was right. Barson’s feedback is what prompted me to find a book coach, someone I could work with one-on-one.
The question was: Who?
I turned to Heather O’Neill assistant director of the Brooklyn-based Sackett Street Writing Workshop. I had taken a course with O’Neill (the Manuscript Generator) during my first attempt at a draft. I loved the course, and felt that O’Neill understood the story and the character. (The mother of two boys, O’Neill was familiar with the themes of surrogacy and learning disabilities that are woven into my story.) Each week, I submitted pages for review, and O’Neill and I would speak on the phone to refine my outline and finish a first draft.
Get a Second Opinion
Just before I finished that first full draft, I heard about a manuscript critique with Heather Demetrios, a great novelist in her own right. Demetrios writes mostly YA, but I knew her sensibility would balance mine.
This was character overhaul mission number two. Demetrios appealed to me because of the fluidity of her writing and the depth of her characters. I could also tell she truly cared about helping other writers.
She was the second coach I worked with, and it functioned in two different capacities: the manuscript critique, conducted by the hour, and also a monthly seminar where I’d submit pages and we have a 90-minute call to go over in-depth notes and strategize revisions.
Demetrios taught me how to implement desire and ambiguities, plus tricks to heighten “profluence” (impelling the reader to want more). The notes addressed consistency in voice, places where the stakes might be heightened, plot sequencing issues, as well as amplifying setting, adding more sensory detail, and cutting dialogue that doesn’t move the story forward.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Questions
Finding a good book coach is like finding a good therapist, and every coach works differently. Conduct your due diligence. There are hundreds of coaches out there, aside from O’Neill and Demetrios. Companies like the Author Accelerator and Lisa Cron’s coaching services offer similar assistance. Book Architecture offers ghostwriting, developmental editing, and marketing strategies.
Whomever you choose, make sure to ask questions about how the coaching sessions work, and how extensive the critiques and notes are. For example, do they line edit? Do they help with query letters? Will they work on a book from start to finish?
And, of course, ask about the cost, which can vary from $90 per hour to $1000 for a one-hour consult with Linda Sivertsen, aka Book Mama.
Find a Community
As great as it feels to have a close friend read your pages, having a critical eye will ultimately broaden your book’s appeal. Whether you enlist a book coach or cultivate an online community, you’ll find a sounding board for your story, and that is a game-changer.
Without a writing community, it can be hard to know if, say, your hero is on the Hero’s Journey, cruising through the seven plot points, or miring through a plotless desert (without camel or water, like my first draft).
It’s no coincidence that Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, the podcast, has carried me through many challenging phases. I turn the volume up every time during those last five minutes, when authors reveal tips to aspiring novelists. (Mainly: keep going!)
Whether we’re plodding along on our first book, or cranking out our fifteenth, with or without a book coach, this is what we all need to do — keep going.
Caroline Callahan Janson is a freelance writer based in Miami, Florida. She is a former staffer at GQ Magazine and Departures, and has written for Condé Nast Traveler, New York Magazine, and the Palm Beach Daily News, among others. She is currently at work on a début middle-grade novel.
